> In the spirit of SHARE, we would even occasionally > report a problem for which we already had found a circumvention
I have had a long-open SR, in which I have invested a lot of hours -- SOLELY because the group here told me I was being a bad citizen if I did not report the bug, even though I had found a perfectly acceptable way around it. And yes, not I have run into the SoftwareXcel restriction -- I could not even UPDATE my EXISTING SR after IBM asked me for more information. VERY annoying. Charles -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of Joel C. Ewing Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2012 9:00 AM To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: Re: IBM, id's to open pmr's, lot$a $$$$ now involved?... On 10/11/2012 08:37 AM, Paul Gilmartin wrote: > On Thu, 11 Oct 2012 06:07:35 -0700, Phil Smith wrote: >> So it sounds like they've lost the distinction between HOWTO and bug >> reports. That would be a big step backward, and indeed irritating. I do >> understand the *theory* behind this: if every Tom, Dick, and Jane at every >> IBM customer can open PMRs, they'll be swamped with Stupid User questions, >> and not get any real bugs fixed. But that doesn't justify forcing it all >> through one ID: if they're going to do that, they're basically encouraging >> shared IDs, which is a bad idea (and likely prohibited by their TOS, but >> that's another issue). Limiting it to some reasonable number - maybe ten - >> IDs per installation might make sense, but we all know that in large shops, >> the DB2 guys and the sysprogs may not even know each other's names, so one >> is ludicrous. >> > Is this per user x per product? > > per user x per product x per licensed system? > > -- gil > > At least in the past it was the case that chargeable on-line service support costs were purely based on number of authorized users at the installation, without regard for number of product licenses or systems. The product licenses only entered into consideration in that one instance of the product under maintenance license was sufficient to allow the installation to open PMRs against the product. If you didn't have the required on-line access to report a PMR on a licensed product, the alternative was to telephone the Support Center. I would think reporting problems by phone would have to be more labor intensive and more costly for IBM, not just an irritant for the customer having to wait around for phone queue call-backs and trying to explain verbally something best illustrated by cut and paste or digital documentation. It makes absolutely no sense to me that IBM would think it a good idea to discourage PMR reporting by erecting financial barriers to the most efficient reporting methods, as the end result is that their knowledge of problems and problem resolution will be delayed, causing their product quality to suffer if installations are discouraged from reporting problems in a timely fashion. When an installation reports a problem, the resolution of that problem doesn't just benefit that installation, but potentially all other installations using that product. The reporting installation is actually performing a "service" for IBM, so the ease of reporting and the costs that IBM expects the installation to incur for that process should reflect that fact! In the spirit of SHARE, we would even occasionally report a problem for which we already had found a circumvention, especially if the resolution had taken a significant effort on our part and finding an APAR resolution would be an obvious benefit for others (and if we didn't want to fight the same problem in the next product release). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
